Troublesome
by DBtheLinguaphile
Summary: Armando Owen Bailey is NOT having a good day. One of his problems is named Lantar Sidonis.


_**A/N: Oneshot. Time is in Citadel Standard - look on the ME Wiki. Turian terminology taken from Myetel's "Spirit of" continuity, which you should read. Go. Do it now and come back here in three months.**_

Armando Owen Bailey was _not_ having a good day.

This morning he woke up, not to the sound of his alarm, but to the sound of an alarm going off on an aircar down the street. Swearing, he grabbed for the clock that sat by his bed.

_0750_, it blinked at him. He was due at work at 0650.

As he bolted from bed, he stepped on his Shuriken machine pistol, which lay on the floor where he had dropped it as he came in last night. Thankfully, he had been coherent enough before falling into bed last night to remove the thermal clip. Sadly, this did nothing to keep him from injury; as his foot came down, the traitorous sidearm slid out from under him and dropped him straight back onto the floor. The pain from his cracked head began to meld with the headache from the previous evening's activities. _How much did I have last night?_ he wondered. There had been a party down at Dark Star, he remembered. Promotion. A kid named Quintus Verax. Good cop – had brought down that hanar smuggler a couple months ago. He had gone to the celebration out of duty, but stayed for the drinks – the bartender made a _very_ good whiskey sour.

Several of the drinks were currently inside his head, trying their best to take it apart from the inside. He picked himself up off the floor and made his way to the bathroom, fumbling for the aspirin. There was work to be done.

As he blearily walked through the doors of the C-Sec offices, his secretary beamed at him. "Good morning, captain!" she said cheerily.

He winced as her voice activated fresh lances of pain. "Good morning, Andrea. Mind keeping it down a notch? What do you have for me this morning?"

She nodded sympathetically, before turning back to her screen. "Two murders, a mugging, five domestic violence calls, and a guy whose neighbor was playing music too loud. Detective Rosenberg has an update on that extortion racket he's been chasing. Oh, and Executor Pallin heard about that Sidonis kid – said you needed to do something with him. He's been tying up the drunk tank for three days now."

"Thank you, Andrea."

"No problem, sir. Let me know if you need anything."

He eased himself into his chair, sighing inwardly. _Sidonis. What the _hell_ am I going to do with him?_ Kid had come in three days ago, talking about some betrayal on Omega. Apparently he had run with Garrus Vakarian on Omega, doing some sort of vigilante work. Sold them out to save his skin – _or scales, I guess_ – and ran to the Citadel, but had some sort of attack of conscience. Had told him he deserved to be punished or something, gave him a written confession. He had thrown the young turian in the drunk tank when he adamantly refused to leave. _Why is this my problem? Zakera Ward, I can deal with. Omega is Aria's playground, not _C-Sec's_!_ But the kid wouldn't listen.

He drummed his fingers on the desk for a second. Tapped his screen. Puffed his cheeks, blew out a long, slow breath, looked at the corner of the desk where the datapad from Sidonis sat.

"Andrea?"

"Yes, Captain?"

"Call up Varian, tell him to bring that Sidonis kid down here."

Varian was conscientious and quick – he led Sidonis to Bailey's desk within five minutes, where the young turian stood shifting his weight from one leg to another until Bailey leveled a hard stare at him.

"Sit down, son. You're making me dizzy."

Obediently Sidonis eased himself into the chair facing the C-Sec captain, checking his spurs to make sure they didn't catch. Bailey continued reading the datapad Sidonis had given him. Finally he looked up again.

"This all true?"

Sidonis nodded. "Honest as I can make it, I swear by the spirits. Use it – it's a full confession. I'll take whatever punishment you give."

"Maybe you didn't hear me the last three days when I told you _I don't have jurisdiction_. Go talk to Aria. Maybe she'll give you a free pass out an open airlock."

"I tried already. Her thugs don't care. I'm _beneath them_. It's more fun for them letting me live than watching my lungs freeze in vacuum," Sidonis said, growing more agitated. His leg was beating a rhythm on the floor now, _thump thump thump_, like the blood vessels in Bailey's head. "You have to do _something_. You're the only one who can."

"You want me to do something."

"I told you that already, when I came in here three days ago. All the information's there."

Bailey perused his desk for a second, grimacing as the headache flared again. There wasn't much to see – an aerogel screen, a couple of printers, a few papers and datapads, a picture of his family. A 20-kilo dumbbell sat at one end; he liked to do a little exercise every now and then while reading reports. A man would go to seed just sitting behind a desk all day.

He picked up the confession again. "I'm just going to set this down here for a moment, okay?" he said, putting it on the floor.

Confusion in the deep-set turian eyes. _This is going to be fun._

"Now tell me why you think I'm your last hope," he said, leaning forward. His left elbow thumped against the dumbbell, rolling it over the edge.

Datapads were durable, but 20 kilos of steel was apparently a little outside of design specifications. The storage device blew apart with a loud _crunch_ as the weight impacted the screen. Andrea jumped in her chair and shot an annoyed glance at him. He didn't care. Sidonis bolted up and goggled at him

"What the _futar_ – I don't – _why in the spirits' name would you do that?_"

"Because that's about the best thing I can do with it."

The kid just _stared_ at him for a second, then launched into a tirade. "I can't even _begin_ to understand why...see their faces every night...every _futtari day_...can't even eat..._lock me up, I deserve nothing better_..." The yelling was starting to get to him. He was only catching every couple of words, and the kid was so mad he was switching between turian and English, which made him harder to follow, and the pounding in his head was increasing to the point where he couldn't think...

"...and now you've gone and destroyed my testimony. I have to _write a new o-_"

"SHUT UP!"

Now Andrea was _really_ staring at him. It didn't matter. His head hurt like _nothing else_ and this kid was making it worse.

"I don't care what you did on Omega. I don't care what you do elsewhere. But you can't come here and tell me that I have to _lock you up because you are TOO MUCH OF A COWARDLY SON OF A DOUBLE-POXED VARREN TO FACE WHAT YOU'VE DONE!_" His voice had risen in pitch to become a scream. The kid looked a little frightened. Good. He fixed him with his famous Cop Stare, now upgraded with Hangover Sauce for a little extra spice, and went on with his lecture in a slightly lower tone. Yelling made his head feel like the inside of a bell, and that was _not _a good feeling. He saw Andrea out of the corner of his eye trying to blend into her desk. _Oh well._

"Running from the problem is _not the solution_. Turning yourself in is _not the solution_. You want to make amends? Good. _Go DO something_, and stop _wasting_ my _valuable time_ and my _precious jail space_. I don't want to deal with your guilt trip. I'm not your counselor and I'm not your mom, so if you want to find some peace, go do it on your own and STOP BOTHERING ME. I have a busy ward to run and I don't have time for remorseful vigilante traitors."

Sidonis looked at him for a second, rage, guilt, and shame warring in his eyes, then stormed out the door. Bailey watched him go, holding himself up for a second more before slumping to the desk as the pain in his head washed over him in waves.

"Andrea?"

"Ye-yes, sir?"

"Bring me an aspirin. No, scrap that, bring me the whole bottle."

"Yes sir!"

"And a cup of water, too!" he said to her retreating back. Oh _hell_, it hurt.

Well, maybe it was worth it to be rid of Sidonis. He dropped his head again.

"Bailey?"

"WHAT?" he thundered, reacting at the characteristic rasp of turian speech, expecting to see Lantar Sidonis.

It was Pallin.

Some days he just wished he had never gotten out of bed.


End file.
